Ok, so it’s not raining today, but it has been raining A LOT in our neck of the woods lately. April showers I guess…

Anyway, today’s beautiful weather is one of our big inspirations for embarking on our first major home improvement: a deck! We decided that since we have such a potentially wonderful yard, we’d really like to take advantage of it this summer, and since there’s no way we’d be able to swing putting in a pool this year, we decided to start here.

We have an architect who is drawing up our vision for the deck so we can get the proper permits to build it. He’s been by the house twice, once for a consultation, and the second time to measure. Saturday we went to his office to review the plans he drew up. They look great, and once we decide on a few things this week, the plans will be finalized and ready to present to the city for our building permit.

In the meantime, while this is going on, we’ve started digging up some bushes in the back that will be in the way of the deck. The weather (and work schedules) has slowed our progress, but here’s a quick before and after of what we’ve done so far.

before...

after!

In addition to the deck, we’ll also be adding a big sliding door going from our dining room to the deck (where the two windows next to the door are in the picture above), and closing off the odd door (also pictured above) that goes from the kitchen to the backyard. In its place will be a window.